Crown of Silence

On the long street, Guishou smoked his pipe in silence. Although there was laughter and laughter in the air, the air around the bench was frozen, like a cold winter, making the homeless man slumped on the ground tremble.

"Excuse me, how to get to Luther Street?" Someone behind him seemed to be lost. He asked the passersby blankly, and finally asked the ghost hand.

In his irritation, Guishou did not lose his temper, but he also had no interest in turning back to answer. He just smoked his pipe in silence and pointed to the right.

"Ah, thank you!"

The passerby got the answer and went away happily.

The sound of smashing continued, but until the group of people thoroughly checked the hotel from the attic to the cellar, they could not find any place where the white-haired child and his dog could be hidden...

Finally, Guishou walked into the hotel and looked around at the devastated front desk with gloomy eyes: "Did someone say something?"

"I swear, he's not here...he's really not here anymore!"

The landlady who was tied up and slapped several times choked with sobs: "He checked out half an hour ago! You guys are late... I really don't know, I don't know anything anymore!"

"In other words, we failed again?"

Guishou put down his pipe and knocked ashes against the wall. His voice was cold: "You tell me, we passed by that damn kid?"

Soon, the tramp who wanted to escape had his legs broken and was dragged into the dilapidated hotel.

"Sir, it's none of my business, I didn't expect it! I swear!" The homeless man begged painfully: "Go around me, I didn't deceive Mr. Shaman, I really didn't..."

Guishou put down his pipe and stared coldly at the homeless man pressed on the floor. The tramp's voice became weaker and weaker, and in the end, he was mumbling and speechless.

His eyes were full of despair.

"Actually, I know that this is just a small mistake, and I can't blame you."

Ghost Hand squatted down and put his hand on the homeless man's right eye. His cloudy eyes were full of regret: "But unfortunately, I am not as reasonable as the Scotland Yard police."

Snapped!

Something is broken.

…

“After all calculations, I missed two points.

On the street, Ye Qingxuan, who was dragging his old suitcase, muttered dejectedly: "First of all, it didn't include the entrance exam and the actual test. Secondly, it didn't include..."

He lowered his head, looked at the crystal ball in his hand, and wanted to cry without tears:

"Why is this broken ether ball so expensive!"

In Ye Qingxuan's hand, the fist-sized crystal ball flickered and reflected the light of the street lamp. Amidst the hustle and bustle of people, random bits of light flashed from time to time in the crystal ball.

It's like fine silver dust constantly emerging, dying and gathering in the crystal. After looking at it for a long time, it will make people feel dizzy.

This is one of the most common measuring tools among musicians: the aether ball.

The seemingly solid crystal ball is nothing more than an extremely thin and extremely hard shell, which is instantly set using high temperatures. The refractive index and thickness have strict requirements that are almost finicky. Runes are engraved inside, infused with pure ether, and can respond to any slight sound.

The thing in Ye Qingxuan's hand is a civilian product sold in a store for musician apprentices to practice and consume.

The most basic type. The service life is about four months, which has consumed almost all of Ye Qingxuan's money. It is said that there are more high specification etheric spheres and measuring tools in the military and musicians' guilds.

That is no longer something that can be bought with money.

As for 'how to communicate with the ether', isn't the most suitable introductory textbook for him right in his hands?

He touched the note given to him by Wolf Flute and sighed softly.

Even so, the difficulty is still very high.

So far, musicians are rare in the human world. Even every book will tell you that if you want to communicate with the ether, you only need to recite runes.

The runes of musical notes are the basis of all music scores and powers. They come from human exploration and research over the years. They are composed of complex basic syllables, which are difficult to pronounce, obscure and difficult to recite.

More than half of them are composed of ether transcribing the sounds of the world.

It evolved from runes to measures, from measures to movements, and finally to a complete musical score. In the long process of exploration, humans have developed a complete system, divided into seven branches and hundreds of specializations.

However, in Wolf Flute's notes, only three basic notes are recorded, which are the entry-level basics of three branches. They are the 'Extraction' of the Transformation School, the 'Peace' of the Forbidden School, and the 'Beast Nature' of the Summoning School.

As long as you can master any of them, you can pass the test.

However, Ye Qingxuan did not have the confidence to complete this seemingly simple test within ten days.

Especially, this is Avalon. In order to prevent the sound from causing a large-scale etheric commotion, the entire city is covered with an etheric suppression barrier from beginning to end.

This barrier is like a sieve, completely suppressing 99% of the etheric interference caused by noise. Only syllables close to the standard can produce an effect.

After all, not many ordinary people dare to have anything to do with the ether, and people are more afraid of the ether.

Whether it is Wolf Flute's notes or any musician's book, there will be a line of commandments written by the first pope on their cover. That line of black commandments is engraved in everyone's heart, from birth to death, forever. Don't forget.

——Revere the ether.

-

Thanks to the history of the church, Ye Qingxuan was able to have a more comprehensive understanding of the current world - after all, for humans, nine-tenths of the world is a dark area that has never been opened.

Researchers around the world use four colors when marking maps.

The most hinterland is white, which represents a sparse density of ether and can be inhabited by humans on a large scale. The second is yellow, where some sharp noises may cause accidents, and the third is red, where loud noises are prohibited... As for black, it is a terrible forbidden area outside the border world.

There, it is said that a slight cough will bring about a terrible chain reaction like an avalanche.

In the border cities of the red zone, even shouting is not allowed when talking, and people can only whisper, which is called the silent zone. People who have not been to the border and abroad cannot understand the pain and fear.

Although the Dark Ages ended only three hundred years ago, there are countless cities and villages destroyed by the riots of ether... Over the years, natural disasters have become a nightmare entangled in the hearts of every human being.

Because of this, there must be a church in the human settlement, not only for spiritual belief, but also because the church will use special technology to dilute the density of ether when building the church to ensure the safety of a certain area.

Because of the way to communicate with and manipulate ether, musicians are respected and feared.

For the advancement and development of technology, musicians have been paying a huge price.

It is said that a hundred years ago, in order to make it easier to communicate with ether, all schools chose to establish academies on the border. But the elimination rate and death rate of doing so were too severe, and some schools gradually considered moving back to the hinterland - at least in this way, students will not explode their heads because of mispronouncing a syllable, or be twisted by the ether vortex.

From ancient times to the present, becoming a musician has been a dangerous business, and its entry difficulty is also second to none. So, Ye Qingxuan is considering... Is it too difficult to learn a rune in ten days?

-

Late at night, Luther Street, an empty public carriage station platform.

After not seeing it for several years, this place is still like what Ye Qingxuan remembered. There were few pedestrians after nightfall, but the lights were always bright, and there was a bench where you could lie down. The temperature on a summer night was not cold enough to make people sick, and the wind was still within the tolerable range.

This was the Midtown area, and the surrounding security was good. As long as you didn't dress like a beggar, the patrolling police wouldn't drive you away. Compared to squeezing those rotten shacks with beggars, this was really a good place to go after being stranded on the streets.

Moreover, it was convenient for him to read his notes.

Although he had memorized the contents of the notes on the way to London, he decided to read them carefully again. He had already given up on the "extraction" of the School of Change.

It required too high a sensitivity to the ether. With Ye Qingxuan's current nearly blind perception, even if it succeeded, he would only be unable to control the runes and be extracted into a mummy, right?

The "beast nature" of the School of Summoning was the clearest in the notes, but the chanting sounded like a beast roaring, and the six basic syllables could not be connected together at all, making it particularly difficult for Ye Qingxuan to grasp the key points.

Only the "peace" of the forbidden faction seems to be the easiest to learn, but it contains dozens of basic syllables! From this, it can be seen that the forbidden faction is the most difficult to get started among the seven systems. Ye Qingxuan really has no confidence in his talent.

There is no way, he can only try one by one.

"First, take a deep breath..."

Ye Qingxuan sat on the bench, chewing the last dry food. With the help of the light, he flipped through the booklet in his hand: "Relax the throat muscles, feel the expansion of the lungs, then exhale slowly, and press the tongue against the teeth slightly..."

According to the "little tricks" taught in the book, he uttered the syllable "ξ" with expectation... Hmm, why is it like being stabbed?

Of course, the ether ball did not react.

He smacked his lips, always feeling that something was wrong. The boy tried again with hope... This time it didn't seem like being stabbed, but like a group of ducks quacking.

The ether ball still did not react.

"..."

Ye Qingxuan took a deep breath and comforted himself: "I must be insincere. Be sincere, be sincere, don't think too much."

Lao Fei lay on the bench, looked at this idiot with a squint, and soon retracted his gaze and continued to sleep.

"Oh oh oh... No, it's still not right."

"Ah oh, anh.m um? Why is there still no response..."

"Oh oh oh..."

In the long summer night, Ye Qingxuan wasted three hours before he realized: Maybe he and this syllable are particularly incompatible. Maybe changing a syllable would be better.

Next, the ether ball proved with silence: changing a syllable would not be any better.

"Oh oh oh!!"

"Ah oh!!"

"Ah oh..."

No matter how much Ye Qingxuan tried, the ether ball still had no reaction. In the end, Ye Qingxuan, whose throat hurt, couldn't help but throw the booklet in his hand to the ground angrily: "Are you kidding me?! What the hell is this!"

Ye Qingxuan stared at the ether ball, as if he wanted to see a flower, but no matter how he stared, the crystal ball remained motionless and did not respond at all.

"Is it broken?"

He shook it to confirm, but at that moment, the ether ball lit up.

"Huh?!"

Like the light of fireflies, the flashes in the ether ball dimly lit up and then went out, like silver powder floating in liquid. Then, countless flashes appeared like stars, swirling and flickering irregularly, illuminating Ye Qingxuan's stunned face.

"What's going on?"

He looked around in astonishment, and a strange smell came from the wind.

A faint laugh sounded from afar.

Something was coming.